Wireless communication devices have become smaller and more powerful in order to meet consumer needs and to improve portability and convenience. Consumers have become dependent upon wireless communication devices such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers and the like. Consumers have come to expect reliable service, expanded areas of coverage, and increased functionality.
A wireless communication device may be capable of communicating using multiple wireless communication standards. For example, a wireless communication device may be capable of communicating using both a wireless local area network (WLAN) and Bluetooth. In some instances, a wireless communication device may communicate using multiple wireless standards concurrently. For example, a Bluetooth stereo headset may receive music from a computer while the computer downloads songs from an Internet website using a wireless local area network (WLAN IEEE 802.11a, b, g, n standard).
Currently, Bluetooth and a wireless local area network (WLAN) operate independently and may interrupt each other, since there is no coordination between Bluetooth and a wireless local area network (WLAN) in the protocol level. A radio frequency (RF) receiver needs to handle desired signals at or near minimum sensitivity in the presence of strong/jamming interfering signals.
Standards such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15 and Bluetooth Profiles have tried to solve this problem by controlling the timing of the transmitted RF signal from each device to avoid RF signal mixing. However, time multiplexing reduces throughput and requires extensive CPU time. Other methods such as interference cancellation have been tried but provide only limited use in practice.